Houston reports 3 more West Nile cases

Updated 11:00 pm, Friday, September 7, 2012

Houston and Harris County health officials are reporting nearly 50 people have been diagnosed with the West Nile virus so far this year.

Three more Houston residents have been diagnosed, bringing the city's total to 31, health officials reported on Friday. Outside the city, 16 people have been diagnosed, county officials reported.

Three Houston residents have died. The county has reported no deaths.

Elsewhere in Texas, a third person in Travis County has died of the virus, making that county among Texas communities with the highest number of deaths from the mosquito-borne illness this season.

Dallas County has reported 13 and Tarrant County has reported four.

In far West Texas, El Paso reported its first death on Wednesday and second on Thursday.

Texas health officials on Friday reported that 47 people have died from the virus. The numbers do not include this case or others not yet reported to state authorities.

The most recent person to die in Travis County was hospitalized for more than two weeks before succumbing to the more serious, neurological form of the disease, the Austin/Travis County health department told the Austin-American Statesman. That person, like the other two who died in Travis County, was over 50, making them at higher risk of the disease.

In the three latest Houston cases, all were people between 55-74.

No vaccines exist to prevent West Nile infections, and no medications have been developed to treat it. Infected mosquitoes spread the virus from birds to people.